The Dirty Book Club(41)
“Stop,” M.J. tried. “Those carts are cute.”
“Cute isn’t going to get me to work on time.”
“What about the Prius?”
“Paul’s been taking it. Where to, I have no idea. Probably the dispensary,” she grumbled.
“Dispensary?” Dan asked.
Britt lowered her wineglass, punishing it for speaking out of turn. “The plant dispensary, I mean. Because Paul is a landscape architect and— Look, there’s Jules!”
M.J. turned to find her emerging from a plume of secondhand vape smoke wearing an enthusiastic A-line dress befitting a PTA luncheon. With outstretched arms she processed toward them with a cellophane-wrapped gift basket and an accomplished grin. Martha Stewart presenting her Christmas roast to the troops.
“I can’t take all the credit. It’s from Brandon, too,” she said, as Britt gushed over her presentation.
“Brandon is Jules’s husband,” M.J. explained to Dan. “He’s in Oceanside but he’s moving—”
“Actually,” Jules said, “Brandon’s here.” She wedged her basket between Britt and M.J. and heaved it onto the bar. “The gym is closed for the holiday, so he came up.”
Britt scanned the densely packed guests as if searching for Brandon, though it was the Brazilian she was looking for. And it became clear by her waning smile that he was gone.
“He’s in the little boys’ room,” Jules said, off Britt’s disappointed expression. “He’ll be right back.”
M.J. brought Dan’s hand to her lips, kissed the smooth arches of his meticulously cut fingernails. Tonight she didn’t have to tell anyone Dan would be right back. Tonight Dan was there.
“So, I take it you know M.J. from the Downtown Beach Club,” Dan said to Jules.
A round of pop-pop-pops interrupted the conversation before Jules could object. And while red, white, and blue tentacles dripped through the star-spangled sky, M.J. explained her alibi.
Jules nodded in solidarity, then tended to her vibrating phone.
“Oh shoot.” She pouted as she took in the screen.
“What is it?”
“Brandon has a sour tummy and wants to go.”
“I can take a look at him if you want,” Dan offered.
Alight with hope, Jules texted their good fortune to Brandon, who immediately shut it down. “He wants me to take care of him,” she said. “He’s fussy that way.”
“Is it me or does Brandon have a bad case of Snuffleupagus syndrome?” Britt asked, once they had left.
“Meaning?”
“Jules is the only one who sees him.”
The music stopped and Easton, the bookstore manager, began sound-checking the mic.
Thud . . . thud . . . thud.
“Is this on?”
After a collective groan assured him that it was, he summoned the birthday girl to join him and five other plaid-suit-wearing gentlemen in the center of the gathering crowd.
Addie smoothed her feathers and swished boldly into the circle, ready to receive.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . ,” Easton said, “we, the members of Choral Fixation, would like to sing a very special ‘Happy Birthday’ to Addie Oliver.”
With that, the men surrounded Addie, hummed themselves into pitch, and began. Their arms rose and fell with the song’s inflections, their metronomic toe-taps perfectly timed. What could have easily been dismissed as party kitsch turned out to be a spellbinding tribute to a girl who was just as comfortable standing in the spotlight as she was sitting on a zebra rug in a see-through gown.
“Why don’t I hate her?” Britt asked.
When the performance ended the guests erupted in applause while Addie thanked each member of Choral Fixation with a breasty hug. Then Easton handed her a black envelope.
Addie flipped it over—front to back, back to front—searching for a clue to its contents. But Easton’s proud grin gave nothing away.
With a What have I got to lose? shrug, Addie sliced open the flap and read the enclosed card while Easton waited, hands clasped behind his back. His eyebrows seemed to ask if she found the news as exciting as he did; hers seemed to answer no. Then she crumpled the note in her fist, gathered the train of her dress, and left the party.
* * *
WHILE DAN WAS getting the car, M.J. peeled back the tissue paper inside her gift bag to find a bottle of sex toy cleaner, two AA batteries, and a vibrator named Fat & Natural. The note inside said:
Thanks for coming . . . and coming . . . and coming.
Love, Addie
“The pleasure will be all mine,” M.J. thought as fireworks detonated overhead.
Three miles south at the Majestic Resort and Spa . . .
JULES CLOSED THE gift bag.
What was Addie thinking? What if Brandon had been pulled over and their car was searched? The police would think Jules actually paid good money for something so vulgar. Not to mention she was married and had a husband for that, thank you very much.
Well, she would have a husband for that if Brandon hadn’t gone back to Oceanside for his medicine; medicine for a stomach condition Jules was totally unaware of.
“Destiny and I will go with you. We can spend the night,” she tried. The thought of him suffering alone pained Jules more than every stomach condition combined. But Brandon reminded Jules of the breakfast meeting she had with Piper Goddard and insisted she stay. It was the “responsible” thing to do, he said. And so she did. Jules also set her wake-up call for thirty minutes earlier than usual so she could creep over to the dumpster on the other side of the resort and dispose of the gift bag by the cheap rooms.